Discussion

Breakfast in East Village/Union Square?

Help! I'm hungry and jetlagged after 6 months in Berlin. Where's your favorite breakfast spot in the E. Village/Union Square/Lower East Side? Early morning specials? I'm not normally up this early... Anything but bratwurst or doner!

My report: Don't have high expectations for food in Berlin. The local specialty, currywurst, is essentially a sliced hot dog with ketchup and curry powder. I liked Thuringer Bratwurst, an occasional Doner Kebab, and my favorite restaurants were Renger-Patsch (Alsatian) and Saigon Green (Vietnamese). I went to Berlin for a fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin, where we fellows were lucky (and spoiled) enough to have a great chef so I was not terribly motivated to hunt around for interesting food.

I just saw your blog - I wish I had seen it six months ago, it would have been a big help.( And as a native Philadelphian I can say that a good local cheesesteak can be pretty impressive.) I did love the little handle-style roll on a Thuringer bratwust, and also like Pauly Saal. Plenty of good smoked fish and bread to eat at home too. Tian Fu and Selig were good. But we were way out in Wannsee, and so well fed that I took the opportunity to focus more on writing music than finding food. I went to Noto the other night and found it very disappointing.